Forest Restitution and Resource Management in the Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

By the deadlines for filing forest restitution claims in 1999, private individuals filed more than 250,000 documented claims for about 300,000 hectares of Bulgarian forests and other lands within the forest fund. This works out to an average of slightly more than one hectare of forest per claim, although average claim size varies by region -- it is two to four times the national average in the Rhodope, for example -- and some private holdings are significantly larger than this average. Because these forests will in most cases be divided among one to three generations of heirs, some holdings will be quite fragmented, however. Beyond this, many forest observers suggest that management of holdings of less than 50 to 100 hectares according to the requirements of Bulgaria's new forest management law is not economically effective (i.e., it will cost more than it generates).

According to Bulgaria's forest restitution law, the ownership documents should have been distributed to successful claimants by June 30, 2000, although in many places this deadline was not met. In the case of the central Rhodope, for example, most of the documents were distributed by early 2001. As of January 2002 the restitution was largely complete, at least on paper; 574,434 hectares of forest had been restored nationwide with decisions on 290,773 claims, of which 320,988 hectares were returned to individuals (this reflects the overwhelming majority of the claims), 226,567 hectares to municipalities, and the remainder to legal persons such religious organizations, schools, and cooperatives. Many forests owners in my central Rhodope field sites received their forests in a form (as co-property or joint-property in named forest massifs -- something like shares in a piece of real estate) that essentially requires that they be managed jointly, although the form that management takes can vary. This management will take place on a geographic basis, with the minimum unit being the named chunk of forests of which certain people are jointly co-owners.

Formal organization for forest management is only possible after these forest ownership documents have been received, although community leaders and some larger forest owners had been discussing how forests might be managed following the restitution for a year or two before the documents were distributed (see  MPI Working Paper 13, 2000). These higher-level anticipatory discussions typically focused on some form of joint management, with consideration of issues such as the voting systems and startup capital requirements for the various organizational forms allowed under Bulgarian law. The people involved in these discussions also express concern that the future coops or other management organizations not sell raw timber, but rather processed lumber at a minimum and preferably finished products such as furniture. This is seen as providing higher dividends to the forest owners as well as much needed employment opportunities. Meanwhile, as of spring 2001, many other claimants seemed to have not given much thought to what they would do with their forests, although there is widespread general support in popular discourse for forestry cooperatives.

One reason for this support is clearly an economic or practical one: the claimants, some of them living outside the region, elderly, or both, do not see how they can manage the forests themselves.